Sometimes I wish people wouldn’t get me anything for Christmas anymore.
I love my pearls that I asked for and got from E. I love the Best Buy gift cards that I specifically asked for to facilitate the purchase of a new iPod. Those are all I wanted, all I asked for. And to be honest, I wasn’t expecting anything else this year and I had no problem with that. Mom and Dad bought my new computer for me in September, and that was supposed to be my Christmas present. It was perfect and I needed it. On Christmas morning I did get a few smallish, lovely things that my mom made for me (she is totally high on her new serger and it’s kind of funny) but it drives me a little crazy that she spent all sorts of time re-upholstering a wood-framed glider rocker for me and I have NOWHERE to put it.
It doesn’t matter that she spent any money on it – she got the rocker cheap at a yard sale and just had to buy the fabric – it matters that I know she must have spent so much time on it. My parents have been to my house, they KNOW I don’t have room for more furniture and more importantly, I’ve told them that I don’t want anything else for the house. I told them that the house was nice and fully-furnished after we put up the curio cabinet they bought for my birthday last spring. Seriously, my new rocking chair will have to sit in front of a door or something. I once had another chair in the living room and moved it into my study because there was NO. SPACE. And Mom worked so hard and it is pretty, but what am I going to do with it? I feel like an ungrateful and evil child because my very first thought when I saw it was “I don’t need a chair! It doesn’t match anything I have!* And I don’t have room for it!” And then I couldn’t find anything to say except something stupid along the lines of “Thank you! Gosh, I’ll need to find a nice place for this.”
Mom suggested that I put it in the living room. Where there is NO. SPACE. I smiled over clenched teeth and realized that I am a bad, bad person.
And I don’t want Christmas gifts from my grandparents at all anymore. They’re on fixed incomes and have healthcare to worry about. Don’t spend money on me. Don’t give me money or gift cards. I’d rather have my grandparents take care of themselves. But if I tell them that, it will make them sad because they like giving me things, and then I feel crappy for not wanting them in the first place.
One of my grandmas gave me a glass bowl that once belonged to my great-grandmother, and things like that are lovely because I can store them (since I have no room for anything in my kitchen either) and I know she didn’t spend money on it. But she also gave me a card with a note that she has something for me from my great-grandma’s house and I will have to drive over and pick it up sometime. And my first thought was “Please baby Jesus, don’t let it be furniture. Don’t let it be anything that I can’t fit in a closet. Glass bowl. I would love another glass bowl.”
So I spent the rest of Christmas Day in a vicious cycle, thinking “Why don’t people THINK about what they give people?” which was inevitably followed by shame and remorse and anger at being such a rotten kid. And then I’d get irritated because I know my mom doesn’t like the fact that she has to keep the heirloom dining set she doesn’t like just because it will offend people if she gets a different one, and so she should know better than to get me things that don’t match my furniture and that she knows I have no room for. Then I’d feel like a bitch again. And so on.
I love my family and I love that they want to give me things. They’re kind and generous people who make me feel like I must either be adopted or a genetic anomaly. I love that my mom puts her time and energy into making things for her family. And I hate that I am an ungrateful kid who feels like she has been thwarted by Santa again, just like the time I asked for a stuffed Pooh when I was eight and Santa brought it to my little sister instead.
I’m much calmer now. I know the chair is nice, I never use the front door anyway, and if I ever pop out a kid I’ll ask for a re-re-upholstering to match the rocker to a nursery where it will definitely see some use. I will put the glass bowl in the storage closet with my glass cake stand and many glass vases and continue to pray to baby Jesus that I will be kind and grateful about whatever my grandma is giving me, even if it is furniture and I have to bolt it to the ceiling.
Did anyone else have to bottle up the crazy on Christmas Day? Please tell me I’m not alone in my rottenness. And any suggestions on how to subtly ask for this furniture and grandparent-money influx to stop are most welcome.
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* THIS is a whole ‘nother issue. I buy furniture I like. Furniture is kind of personal. And sometimes I observe the difference between the style of things I buy and the style of things I have been given and I get irritated, scream something along the lines of “I HATE OAK AND GOLD HARDWARE!” and then I get pissed at myself again. The rocker DOES match what I have. Just not anything I picked out.
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My first thought was a nursery.
I often have to bottle up a bit of crazy about my grandparent’s gifts because they have a habit of being hit or miss gifts. Luckily, this year, one grandma gave me a scarf that is actually pretty cool. The other one gave me some stuff she bought while traveling in Greece and Venice. Sadly, the lovely bracelet and keychain are really not my style. However, I immediately kicked myself because had I been a better granddaughter and actually spoken to my grandmother at some point over the past 2 years and KNOWN she was going to be in Venice, I would have asked her to get me some blown glass rings because they are fabulous and I love them. And then we’d both be happy. So I suppose it’s my fault for being a horrible granddaughter so I can’t complain
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By A Super Girl on 12.29.08 1:36 pm | Permalink
Every year my grandmother gets me a brown haired angel, because I am her brown haired angel… I am a minimalist and really have no surfaces for these types of things–I prefer modern art on walls. Anyway, I accidentally dropped it the next day, and it shattered, and I felt soooo awful because I knew it meant so much to her. It was like my subconscious was messing with me and making me actually DO what I was thinking, when I had no intent of that ever!
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By Elizabeth on 12.29.08 1:47 pm | Permalink
Every year my step-grandparents give us all one of those gift booklets that you can choose a gift out of. I have four of them in a closet somewhere because the gifts in those things are absolute crap. I guess I should be grateful that they don’t actually buy me the crap, but I really just wish they wouldn’t waste their money.
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By Erin on 12.29.08 1:51 pm | Permalink
Every year that I’ve gone home for Christmas, I’ve spent a day of my trip lugging all of my presents to Goodwill, or back to the store’s they’ve come from. It’s a huge pain and I feel the same way– a combination of extreme guilt and extreme annoyance, each emotion leading me back to the other. I’ve asked many times for relatives to please just donate the money– they can even choose the charity.
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By Laurie | Your Ill-fitting Overcoat on 12.29.08 2:10 pm | Permalink
You are not alone. Every year I cringe when I open something from my mother-in-law. I know it’s either going to be a suticase, we literally have about 7 already, towels, bedding or some weird gadget we will never.ever.use. This year it was an electric shower scrubber. What the f will I do with that? Also, the bedding. Why does she insist on buying bedding? Bedding is like furniture, unless it’s on a registry or I give you a picture and UPC code, chances are I won’t like it. We got a bed in a bag this year. Gag. You’re not alone, I’m evil, too.
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By Christy on 12.29.08 2:22 pm | Permalink
Baby I bottle up the crazy every Christmas. When I see you, I’ll show you how bad I am at masking the disappointment from this last Christmas. I failed bigtime. And yes, I don’t want gifts anymore from my grandparents either, why, because they are on a fixed income and pick the worst stuff that I cant use. Although right now I do have a use for the awful candy dish they gave me.
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By Jessica on 12.29.08 7:14 pm | Permalink
It’s ok. You can store your stuff with my 27th pair of ill fitting pj’s that I received from my mother.
They live in my closet along with everything that man ever made that is colored lavendar.
My mother seems to think that I like that color….I don’t.
I just smile and say thanks….sigh…
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By Tampa Gal on 12.30.08 6:41 am | Permalink
Let me start by saying first that I am 31 and when I was a child, I was enamored by Marilyn Monroe.
Unfortunately, my Mother hasn’t seemed to notice that 21 years have passed since I bought my last Marilyn poster. Somehow she has managed to buy me something Marilyn every year since I was 10. One year she even got me a fake Marilyn ID. Last year she bought me a glitter t-shirt, you know the ones – today the Hannah Montanna ones are pretty popular. Every year she gives me something childish and asinine and I feel like a giant heel because each time I think to myself, “is my Mother losing her mind, or is she just a jackass?”. Apparently we are all evil and ungrateful. But I prefer to think of it as overlooked and not listened or payed attention to. That seems more apt…
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By Heather on 12.30.08 10:46 pm | Permalink
OH you are NOT alone, none of us are..lol
I totally sympathize about being given gifts and THINGS that one does NOT want but doens’t want to hurt the person who gave them …(usually one’s Mom or relative)
My Mom used to give me low end gifts that she had bought during the year, then had put out on the spare bed and decided who got what, with NO thought about the person who would be getting the items at ALL.
SHE could afford to do better too.
My husband was appalled at the type of gifts; they were total junk !
I finally convinced her to stop doing this.
So THEN she started giving me a medical newsletter subscription (which is totally hypochondriac inducing information..lol)
I convinced her to STOP giving THAT to me and now she just gives me a magazine subscription.
Phew..
Happy new year anyway!
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By Merri on 01.01.09 4:56 pm | Permalink
Furniture IS personal. You have to function in and around it every day. If it’s ugly, bulky, or non-functioning it loses its purpose. Space waste. In a small place, that’s a horrible offense. What’s worse is getting RID of these gifted fakakta furniture pieces because the gifter will certainly COME OVER, and see that their item is missing. “Where did you put the chair?” they’ll ask.
… “I threw it in the trash where it belonged” typically doesn’t go over well!
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By Melly on 01.01.09 5:46 pm | Permalink
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